Good video game review site?

[Frizzo]

i used to always use gamespot (dont play games like i used to), but the reason i used gamespot was because they used to have a very critical angle which gave me a better idea of the games overall. now it's like every game is 8.5, 9,9,9,9,10.....doesn't do me much good because i know this is not a critical assessment. any recommendations for a better site?

 

[sam_p_lay]

http://www.gamerankings.com/sites/index.html?sort=6

This might come in handy for a roundup of sites and the average scores they give. Edge is your most critical active reviewer with a decent number of reviews and not platform-specific.

 

[ARCADDER]

Man, if you like video reviews then go with ClassicGameRoom http://classicgameroom.com/
Mark and Dave aired the first ever videogame show on the internet back in late 90's. Nowdays it's only Mark but he does great reviews, unbiased, in a very relaxed non-"professional" way.

My recommendation is: Watch reviews on CGR to see if the game looks cool, then go to Gamespot and read the USER reviews (Or viceversa)
I lost faith in ******* "professional review" sites long time ago...

 

[Frizzo]

the problem is almost all games do look cool now because of how close the graphics have come to reality.....looking for the old sticking points from EGM: ingenuity and innovation. gamespot used to be real critical and got that kind of info from them, but not anymore. i will check your friend out though when i get some time

 

[Frizzo]

wow, just found a good *opposite* example...and this makes me want to look for better review sites all the more. i was a little kid in the 80s and grew up with gi joe...this xbox 360 gi joe game is f%##ing great, i mean it is a good good game. they gave this game a 4.0 are you serious? this is a backwards example...this makes me wonder how many good games are out there that i don't know about. so sick of seeing the same type of game get 9.0, 10.0 etc. call of duty call of duty call of duty.....i remember when call of duty first came out, i was much more involved with the online gaming community then, and i remember telling my friends (this was 2003) --yea i just bought this game call of duty, this game is going to be big, this is really good. they were like yea sure whatever....they were so sick of seeing bad fps that they ignored it...but think about that, that was TEN YEARS AGO....same shit over and over and over....meanwhile a game like this gi joe game gets flamed to hell 4.0? and i don't see a gi joe game to go along with the movie sequel either, what bull shit!!!!! this game lets you co-op storm shadow and snake eyes, and they look like perfect representations of their 1980's true forms....storm shadow complains in the game every now and again that he is pissed that he has to work for gi joe...this game has so much personality, what a real load of shit. maybe in 2023 we can still be making and reviewing the same games too.

 

[halem111]

My personal favourite is www.eurogamer.net

Seems to me like they have good reviews

 

[Shade151]

My personal favourite is www.eurogamer.net

Seems to me like they have good reviews

^that's the site I currently trust the most. Good reviews and honest in depth comparisons.

It's usually best to find not a site but a reviewer, or several. Ones that share or have the complete opposite of your opinions. It takes more effort as you have to get to know the person through their writing, but you get a more consistent flow of trustworthy information than just trusting a site. I remember a reviewer who also wrote walkthroughs back in the N64 era. His id was "Marshmellow" something-rather. If he said it was great, I'd go buy the game, play it and then read his walkthrough, they were amazing due to the fact that he had so much of his personality and humor integrated with the facts. And I learned to trust in the marshmellow... fluffy goodness

I've played and thoroughly enjoyed quite a few games that received Terrible reviews, and visa-versa. It's all about marketing. If a game is said to be, or has previews that make it out to be what its not, or not as big/fast/epic/whatever.... it gets horrid reviews. And if a game has little to no marketing... (see "Binary Domain") it doesn't even merit a review from quite a few "sites". Lately I've been seeing reviews and scores on bigger sites based of the demos...

A problem with quite a lot of game review/comparison sites these days is: They played the demo.... No, really, they wrote their review or posted the system comparison based off the demo. Aliens: CM? Highest presales of 2010's, even a few days after release the reviews, and scores on many sites were still based off the demo. Batman: AA? More like lack of AA. All comparison sites I could find at the time RAVED about how good the PS3 version looked and played, it was of course the demo. The real game on the PS3 had no AA to speak of, and while not gamebreaking for me personally, looked terrible in comparison to all other versions of the game.

Anytime you see a score or read a review; (1) make sure it was based of the actual game, (2) look who wrote it or scored it, (3) get to know how closely your opinion matches up with the people from 2.

 

[Herr_Koos]

Check out games.ign.com. They tend to be quite vocal in pointing out why don't like certain things.

As for Gamespot being too lenient, they gave the new SimCity a 5.0...

 

[casualcolors]

Hey Balrog. Listen to your buddy, the Muay Thai Emperor when he tells you that if you're looking for a website that even pretends to maintain the illusion of objective reviews for new game releases, you're going to be SOL. There isn't a good review site for new-releases.

Someone in this thread already mentioned Classicgameroom and they're about the last group of people who seem to enjoy playing video games and talking about them more than posturing as some kind of media figure. Unfortunately, CGR won't be covering every single new release, and so again, you'll find yourself SOL.

The only site I browse anymore (and with a considerable grain of salt) is Edge-online. I don't usually agree with their assessments but they do seem to use a uniform 1-10 scale for the most part, and so that might not be a bad place to check if you don't mind the constant need to remain vigilantly skeptical.

IGN, Gamespot, Giantbomb (who had the audacity to review a 6-hour long, mechanically diluted AAA game as a perfect 5/5 this year already) etc have all earned their stigma as sold out, masturbatory circlejerk sites and you won't find anything of value there unless you're looking to reaffirm your opinion about a game that you've enjoyed. None of them review on an objective scale of any kind, and depending on how much advertising revenue may find its way back to them will largely determine if a game is rated on a scale of 1-10, or if it's rated on a scale of 8-10.

Sorry for the fairly negative post, but the subject matter just happens to be particularly sour in this case.

 

[cats_Paw]

Personally, by now i dont pay any attention to internet reviews. Nowdays, with youtube outthere, you can watch the first 10 minutes of almost any game out tehre and ponder if its worth the money. Thats waht i do Since i got Starcraft 2 WoL (After the dissapointment i decided not to buy any more games).

I still read and listen to things from time to time, but mostly as a time killer rather than looking for information.

 

[artofmagick93]

There is currently only one site I have found that does unbiased Video Game Reviews, probably the most underrated gaming site on the whole web, also much easier to navigate, it reminds me of Imdb only for gaming. They also do trailers, images, reviews, cheats, gameplay, prices, and other gaming related content.

Site is http://reviewanygame.com

 

[Mottamort]

Check out games.ign.com. They tend to be quite vocal in pointing out why don't like certain things.

As for Gamespot being too lenient, they gave the new SimCity a 5.0...

Uhh...how is that not lenient?

 

[Herr_Koos]

Check out games.ign.com. They tend to be quite vocal in pointing out why don't like certain things.

As for Gamespot being too lenient, they gave the new SimCity a 5.0...

Uhh...how is that not lenient?

You think it deserved worse than 5/10?

 

[Mottamort]

Well. Did it work when released? Does it work now months afterwards? Did they lie regarding certain features? Is the AI better than the original SimCity (DOS version).
I do believe when a game fails that miserably, that the scale of 1 - 10 should be applied properly. I dont see the point of using a 1 - 10 scale if a 5 or 6 means bad. 5 is a pass, 5 is average.